Each month, I post a short video sharing important information I'd like for you to know and that I think will make a difference in your work here at UVA Health. This month, I'm sharing an excerpt of my comments from our recent town hall talking about our current COVID-19 response planning process as we experience an increase in cases due to the delta variant.
Take care and be well!
Wendy
PS: Be sure to continue reading UVA Health Update for timely updates about the impact of COVID-19 and our response planning. On Monday, for example, we shared an update about the status of our ambulatory operations.
###
Transcript:
We also just wanted to spend a few minutes talking about our operational plans. And I think, as I was reflecting this morning, probably the most important thing for everyone to know is that we have a plan. And with surge planning, it's really important that we're reviewing this every day and incorporating all of our learnings.
So, as you think about the last 18 months, we've learned so much about COVID. In the beginning, we were unsure of how best to care for the patients. And, since 18 months ago, we've learned a lot and have incorporated all of those learnings into our plans. We also have colleagues across the nation that have cared for multiple hundreds of patients at once, and we've stayed in touch with these colleagues, and we've incorporated all of those learnings into the plan. And then, also just our experience here at UVA, all of those learnings together are informing and strengthening our plan each and every day.
And I wanted to let you know that there's a multidisciplinary team that gets together multiple times a week, that really contributes to our roadmap of how we deploy and execute the resources that are needed each and every day. So, every morning when we wake up, there's a whole multitude of different things that we look at. We're looking at: how the emergency department is doing, how the operating room and procedural areas are doing, how we're doing with staffing, how are our beds looking, what are the transfers looking like, and what adjustments we need to make.
So just for an example, yesterday, we were looking at our ICU census and our COVID patients, and we were noticing that we were having an increase of COVID patients. So, yesterday, in accordance with our surge plan, we activated 3 North, and many people know that four beds were opened yesterday. And I just want to say a special thank you to that team. It was amazing teamwork pulling together, really caring for those patients and making sure that we had the resources and the beds to really care for our patients.
So, time and time again, I see the team's pulling together extraordinary work, and I'm so proud of all that is taking place. And I just want everyone to know that we have a plan, we're working the plan, and I'm really proud of all the work that's happening.
###